TAMPA — The Lightning’s best chance to reach the Stanley Cup final is gone, extinguished when shot after shot died on contact with Henrik Lundqvist, evaporated when the defense did the same in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference final, turning a third-period nail-biter into a box-score blowout.
One win from reaching the final for the first time since winning it all in 2004, the Lightning outplayed the Rangers for a large majority of the first two periods — out-shooting the Blueshirts 27-12 at one point — yet still couldn’t close out the series, losing 7-3 at Amalie Arena, where they posted the league’s best home record during the regular season (32-8-1).
And with that, Tampa Bay joins the Rangers on Friday night, one loss from a nightmarish end to the season and one win from the doorstep of heaven. The Lightning need that win to come to Madison Square Garden against a team which has gone 6-0 in Game 7s over the past four playoffs.
“They haven’t done it against our group,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper pointed out Wednesday. “That hasn’t happened against us. Everything is the past.
“We’ve got a pretty young, confident group here. When they’ve been pushed against the wall, they’ve found an unbelievable way to push back.”
In the Lightning locker room following Tuesday’s loss, there was disappointment, but more a sense of inevitability conveyed in the conversations, as if the series couldn’t have ended so cleanly, as if the up-and-down, unpredictable action could only have been decided in a deciding seventh game.
They had blown their best chance, not their last chance.
“We’re not going to sit here and sulk and feel sorry for ourselves,” Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. “We have to go and win a game on the road to get to the Cup final. We’re confident with our ability to win a game on the road. For whatever reason, we’ve played better on the road than we have at home the last couple times, so we’ll try to put a positive spin on it.”
The positive spin is simple, with the Lightning winning four of five games at the Garden this season, including two of three in this series.
The negative spin beams a little brighter, with the Rangers 7-0 all-time at home in Game 7s and 15-3 in their past 18 elimination games.
“I guess that means they’re due to lose one, right?” Lightning center Alex Killorn said. “We think if we play the way we did in Game 5 [a 2-0 win], I think we’ll put ourselves in a good situation.”
Though the situation is fairly new for the Lightning, who defeated Detroit in a Game 7 in the first round, but played a total of four playoff games in the three years prior to this run, Cooper believes the missed opportunity may be what was needed to extend the run as far as they dream it will go.
“For our team, as a group, we’ve never been this far before, and so it’s just more lessons learned, and sometimes you have to go to the school of hard knocks to find out what works and what doesn’t,” Cooper said after Game 6. “We’ve got a young group. They’ve played some unreal hockey here to get us this far, and we showed if we’re not going to play the proper way, a really, really good hockey team is going to beat you, and that’s what they did. It’s a lesson learned.”
“How do I think we’re going to respond? We’re going to respond the same way we have every time our backs are against the wall. You’ve watched it happen all year. You know how they’ll come out.”
Killorn said multiple players on the team have been dealing with a flu-like virus in recent days, but Cooper offered few specifics.
“You know what, maybe after it’s all said and done, more things will come out of what’s happened in our room,” Cooper said. “But we’re putting the best lineup we can as possible.”